


Cleansing Fire

by shoujokakumei



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: (almost) everyone lives, Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, Happy Ending, infected end but then not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoujokakumei/pseuds/shoujokakumei
Summary: Based off yun-shuten.tumblr.com's infected au!Aka Grimm is fucking pissed





	1. Grimm

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Infected End Au](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/472954) by Yun-shuten. 



You are dying.

 

You have known this would come since your day of birth, but as you stand at the bottom of the infected and dying crossroads staring down at your equally infected child and summoner, your embers turn into a blaze with energy you shouldn't, couldn't, don't have. The world turns rosy at the edges, floating sigils in red and bright bright white surrounding you. You pick up the children (good, you think, she doesn't see youweIus as a threat) and sprint to the town above.

Divine gasps when she sees the children as you shove them into Brumm's hands waiting hands(he told you. Everything. But that betrayal can be dealt with in another life), but you stay silent. You don't have much time to do what you need to do. You reach a claw into the vessels body, muttering an apoligyprayer, void accepting, and rip out the old mothen artifact. Small, so small, but it'll do. You disappear in a flash of pink fire.

Your troupe had stopped in hallownest, once, on the way to another kingdom. The infection had been a known fact, and you could tell it was her work. The king, he asked you to many questions about the ritual. Of course the old Wyrm knew who you where.

 

Next time you passed through, that terrible mockery of your own child stared you in the face, and you could hear the void screaming.

 

You're staring into it's eyes again, now, bright orange and sickly. She was making them scream in her own voice now, ripping open thier thorax. With a wave you your hand, the chains burned red, and the vessel fell to the ground, burning with them. You struck it with the old nail, and your mortal body died.

 

"Sister!" You scream out, voice clear as a child's and a smoke laden as ever. "Show yourself!"

 

And she does. She rises over the horizon, all holy light and vengeance. She screeches at you and you screech back, the primodial tongue you both know. The air around you is already shimmering with her heat, an uncomfortable fevered touch. It takes hardly any effort to set it ablaze. In return, she directs a beam of pure light at you, and you narrowly dodge. You rush at her.

 

Now, you have never been a being for physical altercations. You prefer the elegance and performance of pure magic. But there is no audience here, just you and her and somewhere, three sleepers.

 

Her fur ignights as you rush into her halo, clawing for her eyes. She flings you off and you hit the ground, hard, before performing the same maneuver. This time, you cling to her crown when she goes to fling you, screaming balls of fire at her as she sends bolts of pure light and fever after you.

 

It is grueling, and you can feel your energy waning. You will not have a place for sleep lest you destroy her and burn out the infection with your own cleansing flames. You fight desperately, but by the time her fur has burnt away to the cysts underneath, you are embers again, wishing for fuel.

 

 She screams again, as you pant on the hot stone, barely able to dodge a sunbeam, when four cool hands rest on your back, lifting you up.

 

Behind you are four ghosts, a spider, a fish, a half-moth, and the grown mockery of your child. The mockery nods to you, white eyes upturned in a way it never could in the real world. The spider and jellyfish have already gotten to work by the time you look away from them, attempting to restrain her with thread and tentacles. The half-moth looks at you, and hesitates for a second before speaking.

 

"You- I remember you. The troupe- what do you need? To finish here."

 

"Fuel," You manage to croak out, nearly choking on the mortal tongue.

 

"What is-" he stops as you grind your fangs be"-oh." He looks to the mockery, who nods. "We can."

 

"You will never sleep again."

 

"We've been sleeping for a very long time."

 

You nod, whisper another apology prayer, and absorb thier ghosts. It will be enough. It has to be.

 

You flit up to your sister just as the fish takes a sunbeam through her mask, and falls into the glow below. The spider yells something at you and moves with a speed inproportionate to her size, tying her for a second.

 

But a second is all you need.

 

You rush for your sister's eyes, screaming fire and fears into them, into everything she's ever touched. Her corpse begins falling, dragging you and the spider down with it. Using the last of yourself, you retreat into your child, and sleep.

 


	2. The Beast part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2.1, in comic form! In which Herrah wakes up


End file.
